This is sorta like saying Coldplay won a Battle of Bands over Nickelback, Creed and U2.

There’s a new reality settling in over the landscape of professional sports this winter. Bud Selig has emerged as the best commissioner of the four major pro sports.

That’s not to say that Selig doesn’t have his faults—an egregious lack of instant replay looms largest—but the painless, almost silent manner in which Major League Baseball re-upped on its labor deal this offseason underscores the value of Selig’s stewardship.

...But results are results. Baseball has stayed clear of the pitfalls that have tripped up the other three leagues in recent years, and Selig has steered the ship carefully through some dangerous negotiating waters.

You may not like that the All-Star game determines home-field advantage and you may not agree with an emphasis on “the human element,” but you have to tip your cap to Bud.

There are no dark clouds looming on the horizon. For now, Bud Selig is in the driver’s seat and it’s full speed ahead.

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MLBAM
No play stoppages since 1994 (although that one was a doozy)and continuing CBA peace on the horizon.

As far as the NFL, they are playing, making a ton of money and have used the nature of the sport (the nature of the sport always ties directly to the business model--people often seem to forget that) to more or less crush the NFLPA.

That doesn't make Goodell and Tagilabue geniuses or anything; they are playing a strong hand. But they are doing what they were hired to do.

Well, it's not about the league, it's about the commissioners. Stern's image is in tatters at the moment as he's about to lose a season and Bettman's been a joke forever and he's seeing his precious southern teams move to Canada. Goodell's seen by some as a tyrant, at the very least the attempt to clamp down on headshots through inconsistent fines and penalties leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. But really, it's this:

Selig isn't the best commissioner, but he's the commissioner that's overseeing the most stable labor relationship with the players right now.

Bud Selig may not be seen as a tyrant but he is viewed as an idiot, greedy, no integrity, and will sell out all the core values of baseball that so many of its fans hold dear. I'm not sure how that makes him come out on top.

The Dodgers and Mets are a mess and the Astros are getting Crane while the Marlins have Loria. That's a pretty big mess that exists right now in the game.

the labor peace is a big deal, i remember being extremely upset over the work stoppages back in the day.

It's important only to the extent it detracts from the interests of his employers, the individual team owners. As was pointed out above, the NFL has crushed the NFLPA, and the individual teams continue to print cash, enhance the book value of their franchises, and enjoy regular BJs from the media, particularly TV.

I think Goodell really overstepped his bounds by suspending Roehtlisberger last year and Pryor this year. Ben was not charged with anything. Pryor didn't violate any NFL rules or any laws. You can't decide to just punish people because their name comes up on ESPN too much. There needs to be something tangible.

I guess, in comparison, Bud may look good, but it's hard for me to give him too much credit for avoiding strikes and lockouts--shouldn't actually making sure the sport gets played be, like, the bare minimum we should expect from a commissioner?

I'm not really sure why more offense is bad nor how the lockout meant anything.

The bonkers levels of offense cheapens the game and makes fans question the accomplishments. Personally, I stopped watching the NFL because of the lockout. Maybe I'm the only one.

The head trauma is a small issue and for the most part the players themselves are fighting it. The players on the field don't actually want to make the game safer and don't want the rules enforced.

I know two people who are less of a fan than they were 3 years ago because of the feeling that the players are getting hurt and no one cares.

/shrug. YMMV. I'm a Niners fan and I watched every game of the 2-14 season and have yet to watch a snap of this year's 8-1 team because of how repulsed I was by the way the NFL has buried its head in the sand on head trauma and strong-armed the players during the lockout.

The bonkers levels of offense cheapens the game and makes fans question the accomplishments.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see any of that going on.

I know two people who are less of a fan than they were 3 years ago because of the feeling that the players are getting hurt and no one cares.

The NFL's steps to combat head trauma are largely cosmetic, but they're doing more now than they did even three years ago. If treating players as pieces of meat is an issue for a fan, they should be abhorred at the past.

I guess, in comparison, Bud may look good, but it's hard for me to give him too much credit for avoiding strikes and lockouts--shouldn't actually making sure the sport gets played be, like, the bare minimum we should expect from a commissioner?

Aren't all the major commissioners basically employed by their sports' owners?

It definitely doesn't look good for a commissioner's legacy if its marred by lockouts & labor problems, but if your bosses are telling you "get us the best deal possible, even if it means stopping work," well... don't you have to listen to them?

Also, I don't like Gary Bettman much, but the NHL has improved over the last decade or so. The lockout *really* hurt, yes. But, the actual gameplay has improved greatly. The NHL has done a lot to improve safety and remove thugs & goons from the game. I'm not big on the salary cap & the shenanigans around player contracts, but I could live with it.

The bonkers levels of offense cheapens the game and makes fans question the accomplishments.

I'm right with you on the 1st part, don't' care to much about the accomplishments. The NFL doesn't have the history of MLB to begin with. I do not care the slightest how Tom Brady, Torry Holt, or LdT stack up historically.

Personally, I stopped watching the NFL because of the lockout. Maybe I'm the only one.

I have not stopped completely, but I watch it a lot less than I have in years past. I was semi-disgusted at how the NFL was negotiating and how 98% of the sports media was sipping the kool-aid they were serving.

The Dodgers and Mets are a mess and the Astros are getting Crane while the Marlins have Loria. That's a pretty big mess that exists right now in the game.

This.

A number of critical markets... LA (NL), New York (NL), all of Florida and now Houston have been essentially neutered by dysfunctional team ownership and/or the collective action of multiple owners... all on Bud's watch and by some combination of negligence, tacit approval and active cooperation.
That is going to have consequences down the road...

Aren't all the major commissioners basically employed by their sports' owners?

Yeah. The article pretty narrowly defines best as which commissioner has kept the sport out of labor trouble most recently, while throwing some injury accusations to knock Goodell down, whose league has missed a grand entire total of one preseason game since 1987.

You could say the best commissioner is the one who's done the most to make more profit for the sport's owners. That probably is indeed Selig, as MLB's revenue something like quadrupled from $1.5B to $6B+ during his reign.

You could alternatively say the best commissioner is the one who's made the sport more fun and appealing for the fans. Selig hasn't really done much of anything there, maybe the WBC. Gary Bettman is underrated there, constantly tweaking rules for the sport's betterment and doing fun stuff like the Winter Classic and letting players go to the Olympics.

#22 - i stopped watching nfl football a few years ago. decided i didn't like 1) the injuries / brutality of football 2) the way the league treated their current and past players (ie. the non guaranteed contracts).

the only thing i've missed was watching michael vick run like he was in a video game. that's it.

A number of critical markets... LA (NL), New York (NL), all of Florida and now Houston have been essentially neutered by dysfunctional team ownership and/or the collective action of multiple owners... all on Bud's watch and by some combination of negligence, tacit approval and active cooperation.

Compared to the NFL, where LA doesn't even have a team.

You could say the best commissioner is the one who's done the most to make more profit for the sport's owners. That probably is indeed Selig, as MLB's revenue something like quadrupled from $1.5B to $6B+ during his reign.

I hate Bud Selig with the white-hot fire of a thousand super-novae, but since a "commissioner" is really President and CEO of "insert name of sport" Inc, how else should they really be rated?

I think Goodell really overstepped his bounds by suspending Roehtlisberger last year and Pryor this year. Ben was not charged with anything. Pryor didn't violate any NFL rules or any laws.

At the time, Pryor had only been suspended for 5 games by the NCAA, and it was past the time to declare for the regular draft; Pryor wasn't eligible for the supplimental draft. Goodell only allowed him to enter the draft by agreeing to the suspension. The alternative for Pryor was to stay at OSU (where he may have eventually been declared ineligible, meaning no football at all for a year).

A number of critical markets... LA (NL), New York (NL), all of Florida and now Houston have been essentially neutered by dysfunctional team ownership and/or the collective action of multiple owners... all on Bud's watch and by some combination of negligence, tacit approval and active cooperation.
That is going to have consequences down the road...

this is something i've lately come to think is a definite strategy on bud's part. i don't think he wants to work with/for a strong owner. he's a sneaky b@stard who does a lot of back room conniving to get what he wants, so he needs to steer the ownership of teams towards crony types that he can build consensus with. mccourt was a misstep but only because there was no way he could know the guy would get divorced and then turn it into a public spectacle.

#22 - i stopped watching nfl football a few years ago. decided i didn't like 1) the injuries / brutality of football 2) the way the league treated their current and past players (ie. the non guaranteed contracts).

Yeah, I really don't get that Bud gets such a pass on labor issues. Under his watch, we got a canceled World Series. The only thing comparable was the NHL lost season. NFL and NBA haven't missed a championship. Of course, NBA looks like it might, but that would still put them even with Bud. You can say that there's been peace for 15 years or whatever, but that's certainly selective endpoints.

I hate Bud Selig with the white-hot fire of a thousand super-novae, but since a "commissioner" is really President and CEO of "insert name of sport" Inc, how else should they really be rated?

At least superficially, the commisioner is supposed to look out for whats in the best interest of the sport as a whole both short and long term. I'm a Selig fan, after the Expos disaster, he hasn't really done anything bad overall. Sure one of the best things he's done was a failure on his part, and that is of course not to institute a salary cap(competitive balance my ass) Other things he's done that make sense, 1. interleague play 2.got rid of the stupid rule about homefield for the post season being determined by the year 3.instituted the dh into the all star game(basically every tweak he's made for the all star game has been a plus with the exception of allowing the players to vote for the second string) 4.expansion(not enough to be honest) 5. recently fixed the stupidity of uneven divisions and a whole host of other things... Of course he has to also live with the Loria crime, the Expos, missing a world series and allowing greed to win out by giving Fox TV rights. In comparison the NBA has failed to maintain it's popularity from the 80's and early 90's, the NHL is a second class citizen, and NFL is a naked Emperor, all sorts of screwed up, but no one wants to call them out on it. It has nearly no parity, treats it's players like crap, rampant drug(PED) abuse, treats it's fans like crap(they intentionally keep the LA market open to allow teams to negotiate with their current cities under the threat of relocation), have basically treated the stars as moveable commodities so that fans no longer get to keep favorites(again I despise salary caps) etc.

At least superficially, the commisioner is supposed to look out for whats in the best interest of the sport as a whole both short and long term.

In reality, he's a CEO whose only job is to maximize the bottom line.

As I'm sure you know, you'd get vehement arguments on at least three of the items on your list of five. Number three is either a no-brainer or an extension of an abomination according to some in another thread. And number five is just fixing a problem of his own creation.

NFL is a naked Emperor, all sorts of screwed up, but no one wants to call them out on it. It has nearly no parity, treats it's players like crap, rampant drug(PED) abuse, treats it's fans like crap(they intentionally keep the LA market open to allow teams to negotiate with their current cities under the threat of relocation), have basically treated the stars as moveable commodities so that fans no longer get to keep favorites(again I despise salary caps) etc.

This. This NFL is absolutely despicable.

1) The owners are scum who extort from their fans at every opportunity (e.g. PSLs, forced to pay for pre-season games) and who don't care at all that half their employee end up maimed with a life expectancy short of 60.

2) The players are often actual criminals. What other sport has a rapist (Roethlisberger) an accessory to murder after-the-fact (Ray Lewis) and an animal-torturer (Vick) as major stars?

As I'm sure you know, you'd get vehement arguments on at least three of the items on your list of five. Number three is either a no-brainer or an extension of an abomination according to some in another thread. And number five is just fixing a problem of his own creation.

Agreed that others don't agree(vehemently) with me(except of course everyone hates Fox baseball broadcasts). For the most part I like almost all the changes that have happened under Bud's watch, I keep hoping for a sensible instant replay system to get instituted but have the fear that they'll follow the NFL's lead and create a crappy version of instant replay. And of course as people like to mention, his biggest mistakes/failures have been a doozy, most notably of course the lost post season and the Expos travesty. I don't really see an issue with either McCourt or the Mets, bad management is going to happen from time to time, how he fixes it, is what matters.

The Astros thing is also a pretty big problem, although I fully support the move of an NL team to the AL, and I understand the reasoning for moving the Astros(league has leverage with a new owner, add a team in the same time zone as the Rangers, not one of the original 16 teams etc) doesn't completely forgive him for treating a 50 year old franchise this way. It makes more sense to move either the Marlins, Diamondbacks, Rockies or Nationals to the AL and adjust the divisions accordingly...

The NFL has a murderer in the hof, baseball won't even admit steroid users into the hof(of course if NFL refused steroid users, they wouldn't have anyone eligible who started their career after 1980, except maybe Flutie)

The bonkers levels of offense cheapens the game and makes fans question the accomplishments.

If you mean passing yards, those are historically high for the season to date. Points scored are not at a historic high. Total yards are up, but turnovers have trended way down over the years, which actually dampens scoring.

The NFL has the most parity. Going from worst to first in the NFL is easier than in other sports. The Lions are on the verge of going from the worst record ever to the playoffs in 4 years. The NFC South has never had a repeat winner. Every year since 2005 at least one last place team has won their division the following year.

Additionally, number of different teams in the finals over the past ten years:

#52 is correct. The short 16-game season and the large influence wielded by a few elite QBs create the appearance of imparity to screech about, but by and large the NFL is pretty close to a levelly competitive playing field. Nobody in the NFL actually tries not to compete like the Pirates and Royals and Astros, and there's no equivalent of the Yankees buying 16 playoff berths in 17 seasons and counting with triple the income of the bottom teams. The Colts had the league-record streak of 10 playoff years, which was driven by arguably the best QB ever and inarguably top-10, and we just saw how hard that came crashing back to earth without him.

The NHL in its salary cap era is halfway balanced; parity on the top end with no dominant team but still with plenty of doormats like the Islanders. Arguably that's the worst of both worlds, since a dominant team gains attention and garbage teams lose fans for the league.

Going from worst to first in the NFL is easier than in other sports. The Lions are on the verge of going from the worst record ever to the playoffs in 4 years.

Tigers pretty much did that also. 2003 43-119(.265) record to World Series participant in 2006.

The NFC South has never had a repeat winner.

NL West champions, D-backs, Giants, Dodgers(Rockies w/c), Dodgers, Diamondbacks(Rockies w/c), Padres...so since 2007 every team in the NL West has made it to the post season 5 teams over 6 seasons.

Every year since 2005 at least one last place team has won their division the following year.

That one is hard to equal. I mean sure you have the Diamondbacks this year, but MLB has a couple of sad sack franchises at the bottom of the pile for several years that makes it tough to do that. Last to first, Diamondbacks 2011, Tampa 2008, Cubs 2007, Dodgers(tie) 2006, (along with the Rockies making the playoffs in 2007 after finishing in last place previous season and the Tigers going from a .438 pct to a .586 and making it to the series)

At least they made it there. In baseball you can't boil down the list of world series participants to three names before the seasons with any certainty. Heck in baseball the longest streak of post season appearances right now is, the Phillies with 5 post season appearances in a row... Colts are about to break their streak of 9 in a row, which I assume is the longest streak in the NFL.

The NBA has by far the LEAST amount of parity of the major 4 sports. David Stern loves his dynasties, and the officiating crews make sure the league gets as many of them as they can. The Mavs winning their first championship this past summer was nice, but they were still just the 9th franchise to win since 1980. And only 3 Western Conference teams have made the finals in the 13 years post Jordan/Bulls.

Stern gets my vote as the worst commissoner of the major 4. The steroid scandals dogging Bud are nothing compared to the Tim Donaughy/officiating scandals that plagued the last 20 years of the NBA. Anyone who believes Stern that Donaughy was the only one involved hasn't watched many games the last couple decades (or else they're Bulls, Lakers, or Heat fans, the beneficiaries of most of the worst called games in history). Professionals don't miss that many calls on accident. They just don't.

I've been a die hard NBA fan for over 20 years, and I'm almost to the point where I don't even care anymore if they have a season or not. And that's just sad.

But this is getting away from the point I was making. The poster said that the NFL had "nearly no parity." Arguing if the MLB or the NFL has more parity is irrelevant.

Agreed, my comment was meant to be a jab at the people that suck into the massive lies about the NFL and it's supposed parity over the other sports (especially baseball) because it has a salary cap. NFL illusion of parity is a product of it's 16 game season, 4 team division and 12 post season teams(or whatever it is) they are still massively top heavy, but occassionally a team might slip into the playoffs for one season and make it appear that they are competitive, at the end of the day the same teams are playing most of the time(Colts, Patriots, Steelers, Eagles, Packers, and Jets are in the playoffs) there is no real difference in parity between the two leagues, both have sad sack franchise, both have teams that are constantly at the top of the game, and occassionally a franchise moves from being a sad sack to being elite/competitive for a few seasons.

I don't think there is any real argument that the NFL has more parity than MLB.

For some other site, I broke down the last 20 champions for each of the four leagues (NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB).
(that means it covers 21 years for NHL and MLB as they both skipped a championshp during labour problems)

The number in the brackets indicates the number of years since they last won a championship, or the number of years the franchise had been in existence before winning that championship.

1) I listed the year of the championship based on when the regular season started. So the Mavericks, Bruins, Packers, and Giants are all 2010 champions.

2) The NHL (2004) and MLB (1994) had no champions, so I had to go back an extra year to get 20 championships.

3) NFL championships also include pre-Super Bowl seasons (Rams, Patriots) in the original NFL and AFL.

4) The Baltimore Ravens are listed as a separate franchise from the Cleveland Browns in Sports-Reference.com (as a new Cleveland Browns team reappeared a couple seasons later and the NFL insists they are considered one franchise). Every other franchise that moved before winning a championship (Dallas Stars, New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche, Carolina Hurricanes), or since last winning one (Indianapolis Colts, Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Rams) inherited the championships (and seasons) of their previous incarnation/location.

The only league I am pleased with the direction of is the NHL. It has a more entertaining and watchable product than ever.

I agree with this. The NHL is now faster and more entertaining than it has ever been. Allowing the two line pass and delayed offsides calls, along with hurry-up faceoffs after whistles and very strict delay of game penalties, has really sped the game up. As far as I can tell, it is the only major sport that has successfully implemented changes that speed up the game.

I haven't missed a Caps broadcast this year. It's great entertainment, and I can watch a game in under two hours (with intermissions and commercials edited out).

Based on my own limited experience with the NHL I would agree as well. When I was a kid watching hockey on TV was very boring but at the very least the last few times I've got a playoff game they've been mildly interesting.

at the end of the day the same teams are playing most of the time(Colts, Patriots, Steelers, Eagles, Packers, and Jets are in the playoffs)

This is parity? Compared to the Yankees (16 out of 17 years), Phillies (5 straight), Braves (14 straight), Angels (6 of 8 years recently), Red Sox (6 of 7 years '03-'09)? In a playoff format one-third smaller?

You're making it up. MLB is the sport with the illusion of parity, and that's because of the crapshoot nature of the small sample size postseason. Take it over the real 162 game schedule and baseball is ridiculously unbalanced.

The Blue Jays, Orioles, Pirates, Royals are going on or beyond 20 years without a playoff appearance and the Brewers recently went 24 years. That's unheard of in the NFL, the longest current streak there is 11 by the Bills.

Take it over the real 162 game schedule and baseball is ridiculously unbalanced.

Compared to the NFL? When was the last time an MLB team won (or lost) 140 or 150 games in a season?

The Blue Jays, Orioles, Pirates, Royals are going on or beyond 20 years without a playoff appearance and the Brewers recently went 24 years. That's unheard of in the NFL, the longest current streak there is 11 by the Bills.

The playoff format being one third bigger cuts both ways though. How long would some of those droughts be if the NFL only had eight playoff berths?

MLB is the sport with the illusion of parity, and that's because of the crapshoot nature of the small sample size postseason. Take it over the real 162 game schedule and baseball is ridiculously unbalanced.

Unlike the NFL with it's 14-2 and 2-14 records?

Take a look at that excellent analysis Random did.

MLB has more parity than the NFL across the board: longer time between championships, more different champions, longer streaks of different champions.

The Blue Jays, Orioles, Pirates, Royals are going on or beyond 20 years without a playoff appearance and the Brewers recently went 24 years. That's unheard of in the NFL, the longest current streak there is 11 by the Bills.

But also keep in mind that just making the playoffs itself in the NFL or NBA is no big deal. The bottom playoffs seeds of both leagues are often .500 teams (or worse in some cases) with no realistic chance whatsoever to compete for the championship. A token playoff appearance doesn't mean these teams are actual contenders. In the NBA, for example, more than half the league makes the playoffs each season, but only 4 or 5 of the 16 actually have a serious shot at winning. Sometimes only 2 or 3. The 8th seed has beaten the 1st seed only 4 times in history, and 3 of those 4 seasons they just went on to lose in the second round anyway.

Compare this to MLB, where making the playoffs actually means something since every team that does has a realistic shot at taking home the championship (except for the Twins when they have to play the Yankees).

That’s not to say that Selig doesn’t have his faults—an egregious lack of instant replay looms largest

Baseball has as much instant replay coverage as the NFL, which is to say limited. This guy can't be jonesing for as frequent replay as the NFL? Nearly everyone agrees the NFL uses replay too frequently.

The best way to compare Selig v Goodell is analyze their handling of these two issues. Buster Posey getting his season ended by a violent blindside hit and the NFL reacting to violent hits where most are basically withing the rules.

Selig took 5 seconds to say, this is part of the game and part of the game is aggressive, hard hitting contact at home plate, blind side or not, season ending or not, the game won't change. Very black and white, very little on-going controversy after this event.

Goodell has taken a much more equivocating position. Rules seemingly change year to year and are applied differently from game to game, hit to hit. Fines come crashing down for some players and on others, nothing. FA rookies are even getting fined $20 grand for plays that don't even draw flags and not even a discussion in game from announcers. Goodell's actions has resulted in a pussified league, one that rookie N Suh exposed last year for being filled with weak babies.

MLB has more parity than the NFL across the board: longer time between championships, more different champions, longer streaks of different champions.

I agree with #73, one thing I learned in the past month, every team Tebow has beaten has sucked for one reason or another. What happened to parity? Also, I was stunned to learn last week the Lions haven't had a winning record since 1990 or 1991 I believe.

The NFL also has a joke of an on-line presence, they barely acknowledge technology, where MLB embraced it over a decade ago.

Fantasy Football trumps fantasy baseball online and between the two it is NFL plays that one can watch on youtube. Secondly, NFL.com does a pretty darn good job posting a ton of video footage after each game.

Someone should study the bottom, not just the top of these leagues. Parity or lack of is a bigger problem for teams stuck at the bottom, if you ask me.

That's what I'm driving at. MLB has nigh-on permanent overclasses and underclasses of teams, thanks to payroll disparities and division alignments. The Royals, Orioles, Blue Jays, Pirates could easily never reach the playoffs for a generation from now. Won't happen in the NFL.

The deniers like to think that MLB has parity because every now and then an underclass team like the Rays will luck into a bumper crop of good prospects and make some noise for a handful of years. That's a fallacy - a multiple endpoints argument - pretending the outlier is the common case. You can't say that 1 out of 10 bottom-payroll teams creates parity while ignoring the 9 of 10 that sit in the basement.

The deniers like to think that MLB has parity because every now and then an underclass team like the Rays will luck into a bumper crop of good prospects and make some noise for a handful of years. That's a fallacy - a multiple endpoints argument - pretending the outlier is the common case. You can't say that 1 out of 10 bottom-payroll teams creates parity while ignoring the 9 of 10 that sit in the basement.

Making the playoffs isn't about parity though, if that was the case, then to make a league equal all you have to do is add more playoff teams. The random sub .500 team in the nfl that makes the playoff isn't indication of parity, it's an indication of them having too many playoff spots. Baseball never has a team with a sub .200 winning percentage or above a .750 winning percentage, it's pretty common in the NFL.

The best case for the NFL parity argument isn't the crappy teams turning good, it's the frequency in which good teams turn bad. Look at the 2001 Rams compared to now, or the today Colts compared to previous few seasons. That is about the only point I see in favor of the NFL. The spread in difference in winning percentage between the best and worse team in the NFL vs the MLB is massive. How can anyone call a league parity that has a team with a perfect record and a 1-16 in the same season? that is a difference of .937 winning percentage. Biggest swing in baseball would be around .360.

The Lions taking a year longer than the Tigers to go from a historically bad team to a team potentially in the playoff race isn't a point in favor of the NFL, it's a point in favor of the MLB system.